Why I might vote for Ken Livingstone (for the first time)
London is having its mayoral elections on 3rd May this year (most people know about the elections; the date hasn’t been so widely mentioned on the news) and the two main candidates are Ken...
Category: Politics
Monckton ignores the elephant in the room
Last night BBC1 aired a programme, Letting Go (available until 20th March in the UK), presented by Rosa Monckton, one-time friend of Princess Diana and whose daughter Domenica, god-daughter of Diana, has Down’s syndrome....
Review: Keith Allen meets Nick Griffin
Keith Allen Meets Nick Griffin – 4oD – Channel 4 Keith Allen has previously done a programme in which he interviewed what he called “the God Hates Fags sect in Topeka, Kansas”, and whose...
Workfare critics DO care about its impact on workers
The war on workfare is worse than workfare itself | Brendan O’Neill | spiked This article dresses up a familiar argument of the present government and its supporters in the right-wing press — that...
Review: Proud and Prejudiced
Proud and Prejudiced on Channel 4 (available to watch for another month at the time of writing) Proud and Prejudiced featured Saiful-Islam, one of the public speakers of the group commonly called Al-Muhajiroun, a...
PCC fails to condemn misleading Mail article
Building for the Future Blog: The Daily Mail and the “Strict Muslim” – Part 2 The above article reproduces the response of the Press Complaints Commission, a deliberately toothless “self-regulation” body for the British...
People who resist subsidised cheap labour aren’t snobs
Faiza Shaheen – I’m a jobs snob. Iain Duncan Smith should be one too. | the new economics foundation There was also an article in yesterday’s Guardian from someone with a genetics degree from...
Review: Stacey Dooley on Luton’s fanatics
BBC Three – My Hometown Fanatics: Stacey Dooley Investigates Stacey Dooley is presented as someone who was plucked from working as a shop assistant at a perfume counter at Luton airport to presenting an...
How do we “face up” to the left’s eugenic past?
Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left's closet | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | The Guardian The article is about the enthusiasm of pre-war centre-left intellectuals for eugenics, the movement...
Chris Brown and other misogynistic musical mediocrities
Last Sunday night, the R&B singer Chris Brown performed at the Grammy award ceremonies, having apparently been given an exemption from the terms of his five-year probation to appear. Brown is probably better known...
Welfare Reform Bill and the Royal Assent petition
Recently someone put up a petition online calling on the Queen to refuse Royal Assent to the impending Welfare Reform Bill (i.e. to veto it), to which Sue Marsh, co-author of the Spartacus Report,...
Another pioneer for the Tory workfare scheme
There is a long article in today’s Guardian about the racism facing the Roma population in Hungary, which has faced acute discrimination since (at least) the end of Communism, particularly in the education system...
Holby City’s ridiculous bone marrow transplant story
Last night BBC1’s Holby City aired a quite ridiculous storyline in which a 16-year-old girl with the skin condition Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) received a bone-marrow transplant from her sister, which is supposed to cure...
Retail “work experience” is nothing of the kind
Why the government was wrong to make me work in Poundland for free | Cait Reilly | Comment is free | The Guardian Cait Reilly is currently suing the government after the DWP forced...
Why we protect vulnerable prisoners
Yesterday the two men convicted of murdering the black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, when they were teenagers were jailed “at Her Majesty’s pleasure” (effectively a life sentence), one for a minimum of fourteen years and...
Jones will come back!
There is a scene in Orwell’s Animal Farm in which the pigs (who had become the ruling class of the post-revolutionary farm once Farmer Jones had been thrown out) and the other animals argue...
Young people need to know that actions have consequences
Response: Sentencing of young adults should take their maturity into account | Comment is free | The Guardian This article, by Vicki Helyar-Cardwell of the Criminal Justice Alliance, appeared in the “Response” section of...
Laurie Penny and breast implants
French exploding breast implants — hilarious, right? Wrong | Laurie Penny | Comment is free | The Guardian I've been following the story about the French breast implant recall with some interest, as it...
Why do lads’ mags offend more than the words of rapists?
Are sex offenders and lads’ mags using the same language? – University of Surrey – Guildford A recent study carried out jointly by the universities of Middlesex and Surrey in the UK (press release...
Baroness Warsi and Anjem Choudhary: takfir on demand
Lady Warsi: extremists forfeit their right to call themselves Muslim | Politics | The Guardian Baroness (Syeeda) Warsi recently said in an interview with the Guardian that Muslim extremists such as Anjem Choudhary, who...